First impressions of Monster, Godzilla Minus One, and A Thousand and One
The titles of these three films — films that couldn't be much more different — seem to fit together like LEGOs. So I'll line up my brief first-impression reviews in one post.
A season like this one makes it difficult to find any time to write. While the in-store Christmas playlist insists that it’s “the most wonderful tiiiiime of the yeeeeear,” I’m still waiting for the “holiday break” on my calendar to begin. Crises at the office, crises in my family, crises in Anne’s family, and COVID on top of it all. Oh, yes — and a book deadline looming over it all like a laughing supervillain. So, yeah — it’s been hard to carve out time to write film reviews.
But I have been seeing movies. Movies have been just about the only thing strong enough to give my brain a reprieve from trying to manage unmanageable challenges this month.
I’ll share some first impressions here of three that I’ve recently seen, all of which impressed me in various ways. And I like the lineup of these titles:
Monster, which isn’t about a real monster;
Godzilla Minus One, which is about a monster (but what does the title mean?); and
A Thousand and One, another title that challenges viewers to be especially observant so that they can spot its significance to the narrative.
Monster
You've heard this line: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
Typically, if you Google those words, you discover they've been attributed to all kinds of wise writers, including Plato. (Most probably, they first came from the author and minister Ian Maclaren.) Whatever the truth might be, I'd argue that, going forward, those words should be linked to a download of filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster, which is one of the most absorbing dramatizations of that wisdom I can think of. Every single character in this movie is fighting a hard battle, and very few of them ever learn what their neighbors’ battles are really about.
For the last 30 minutes of this film, I was increasingly worried that the tangle of tragic storylines would be resolved in some far-too-convenient way, something that would feel contrived and disappointing.
Just so you know — that doesn’t happen. Not at all. The way it does resolve may have you wishing, after the fact, that they had contrived some easier, more satisfying resolution. This is a heartbreaker in so many ways, and it will leave you with just as many questions as answers.
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